Unearth God’s riches this Bible Sunday
Unearth God’s riches this Bible Sunday
Today, Churches up and down the land will be celebrating Bible Sunday. Many Churches will be using the tremendous resources put together by the Bible Society especially for today, and focusing on Psalm 119 — the longest of the psalms in the Bible. And, of course, many Churches will be focusing on other aspects of the Bible.
While I was thinking about what I might do to remember Bible Sunday on the blog, my mind was drawn where it often is, to the topic of love. Because many Church of England Churches will be following the lectionary readings for Bible Sunday instead of the Last Sunday after Trinity, they won’t be hearing those wonderful words Jesus gives as an answer to the question, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Here’s the full passage from Matthew’s Gospel:
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
I wouldn’t want to say the lectionary compilers have got it wrong; but that passage feels almost like Jesus is telling which part of our Holy Scriptures is the most important part — and would, to my mind, have been so very right for Bible Sunday.
In these words Jesus gives us the key to understanding the Scriptures, the key to how we should interpret them, not just for when the words were first written, but for our time now, and for all time to come. It’s love! God’s love; our love; and everybody’s love. Love! We can show the true character of God to the world we live in, if we keep love in our hearts.
Love is the fulfilment of all God wants to say. Love is the ultimate truth of his word. God’s word of love is to be found, especially, in Jesus himself. Jesus, who lived, taught, and died a life of love, so that God’s love would be real for all of us.
Love is the beginning and end of the Scriptures. The future of God’s world depends on it, both human and divine. It’s all about the love!
Help us to show his love
This Sunday, the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity, is a very rare Sunday, so rare, in fact, that it doesn’t even have its own Collects and Post-Communion Prayer. The Collect quoted below is the correct one for this Sunday, but it is actually the Additional Collect for the Third Sunday before Lent. The reason for this rather strange anomaly is because Lent and Easter were so very early this year, which I wrote about way back at the beginning of February.
“Help us to show his love” — “love” (again), a subject talked about a lot on this blog. But how can we “show” God’s love to the world?
Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). I think that’s how we demonstrate the Father’s love for us; we show it in the way we love each other, those around us, and throughout the rest of the world.
Angel, one of the people who left a comment on my post for the Blog Action Day earlier this week, wrote a very moving post himself for Blog Action Day. In it he wrote:
So, how did I escape from poverty? I did not sell my soul and honor, as I strongly believe that it this will only bring me to a more pitiable life, in the long run. Although the escape was gradual and the road was stiff, I was determined that I will be able to make it. No, I did not get rich, but at least I am having a good fight.
Actually, there was no secret or magic. It only began from a single word – family.
I was raised with a broken family so basically, I did not have one. When I realized that, I thought why not treat every person I meet as my family? Maybe, I will be inspired to make plans to escape poverty. Maybe, they will be kind enough to help me not by giving me fish but teaching me how to catch them. And surprisingly, it did help a lot. But the biggest help I got is the lesson I learned, that is to study harder, not about academics but how to observe life.
“Family”, if we, too, can treat everyone we meet as family, then perhaps we, too, can help to lift others from poverty, or be lifted from it ourselves. And in that transformation of our lives, we’ll be showing others how God loves them, and us.
Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives as they are transformed
into the image of Christ our Lord. Amen.Additional Collect for The Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity
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